>> thank you. it's an honor to be here. i thought it would be better during these times of lots of news that we go to questions than answers. just an initial opening comment that every day i'm extremely proud that i have the opportunity to represent them and women of the united states army, 1.1 million in the national guard u.s. army reserve and active component. over the last 10 years there has been over 15,000 words of valor given out to u.s. army soldiers, nine medal of honors, almost 30 distinguished service and silver stars in many words of valor because they did what we asked them to do, go help provide security for this great nation of ours. it's important we continue to think about that as we move forward and look to the future and what are our national

security issues? what are the things that we have to be concerned with as a nation and what is the army's role in those national security issues? so i hope we will have a good discussion on that today. we face many challenges today, whether it be budgets and balancing our budget, reducing that debt and what is the right level of funding for our military? we face social problems which was mentioned, such as assault and harassment. we are working on the issues of suicide, the issues of taking care of our soldiers who have been wounded both with physical injuries and those that are nonvisible injuries. that's something we must stay focused on not just today but for the foreseeable future because there will be some soldiers that are impacted by this for many years. it's our responsibility to make sure that we continue to take care of them. i hope we will have an opportunity to talk about the

future and talk about the key issues we are facing today. it's an honor for me to be here and i look forward to the discussion so with that i will turn it over. >> considering the new strategic environment in the shift from conflict to peace. >> thank you. there are several things you will see in 2014. obviously at the end of 2014, we will see a change as we come out of afghanistan. we are still waiting on the signing of the raiment that we call the bsa with afghanistan and after that we will make a decision on do we need residual forces in afghanistan are not and i'll be meeting with the joint chiefs and president as we move forward on the ground in afghanistan. with that, what that says is

just a few years ago the army had over 250,000 soldiers deployed in iraq and afghanistan. at the end of 14 it will be much less number than now so we will be in the process of transitioning our force. there are a couple of things. we are rebalancing to the asia-pacific strategic guidance that we developed in the beginning of 2012 but in addition to that it's also about is staying engaged regionally. the army is pushing forward the concept of regional forces. we want to realign our forces with the combatant commanders whether it be in the asia region, africa, middle east, southern command in order to provide them the resources necessary for them to do what their job is. that's the build security structures that allow us to be safe and continue to grow our economy as we move forward. allowing us to shape the environment for the future. and then if necessary as a last

resort he prepared to win if that is what we have to do in order to protect their security. those are the changes you are going to begin to see in 14 but this will be a process that occurs probably over the next five or six years. looking to iraq, with his seizures of parts of fallujah and ramadi and much of the work that you have done has been turned back in iraq. how do you feel about our world now in iraq as we watch what's going on over there and try to figure out what's next? >> first i would say obviously it's disappointing to all of us to see the deterioration of the security inside of iraq. i spend a lot of my life over there, from 2006 to september september 2010 i was there as we continue to reduce the level of violence and the sectarian violence going on. i believe we left at a place

where was capable to move forward. we have now seen because of several political issues internal to iraq that security situation has now devolved into something that is in my mind concerning. but this is not just about iraq. in my mind it's something we have to be cognizant of this would look across the middle east, what's going on in syria, what's going on in lebanon, what's going on inside of iraq and it's this that terry and potential building of sectarian conflict between sunni and shia and the exploitation of that and nonstate actors such as al qaeda and other organizations who will try to take advantage of this. the biggest threat to our national security is this ungoverned territory becomes areas where we have terrorist organizations that become dominant and then try to export their terrorism outside of the middle east and into several other countries including united states. i think it's something we have to watch. i think of it's something that we have to stay engaged with

politically and it's important for us to make sure that people understand we are concerned. i think you will see us do that as we move forward. speak in the u.s. keep al qaeda's expansion there at me without having troops on the ground? >> we have to wait and see. we have trained security forces to do that. i think the first alternative is for the forces that are there that we have trained to execute that strategy. one of the things that we did in iraq as well as in afghanistan today is trained about counterinsurgency and how you fight insurgencies. i think what we have to do is continue to work with the iraqi army and others to make sure they understand the basic techniques of counterinsurgency. so i think we continue to do that. we have a small element on the ground that works in the embassy

that has some expertise that can continue to help in these areas and i think it's important we do that. it's also important that we continue to ensure that we stay involved diplomatically, which we are. we have got to wait and see. i would say this is certainly not the time to put american troops on the ground. i think it's time for them to step up and see what they can do we have to wait and see if it becomes part of our national security interest to put people on the ground but i think right now it's best to let them take care of this problem and we will continue to work with them to try to solve this problem as we go forward. but it is dangerous. the thought of al qaeda to get into ungoverned territory is something we have to be very cognizant of and as they conduct counterterrorist operations as well. that's what we are focused on. >> you said you don't think we should send troops back into iraq but if we did still have troops there the ground could be seizures have been prevented?

did the u.s. below the endgame by removing all the troops when they did? >> i would just say, i mean we can all be monday morning quarterbacks on this. the answer is i don't know. what i do know is as i said earlier we provided them an opportunity. the levels and i've and of violence were the lowest they had been in a very long time. their economy was growing. they were exporting more oil. they had a political system in place that appear to be working but since those times that clinical process has begun to deteriorate. their economy actually has continued to grow because they continue to export more and more oil, because they now have access to the oilfields. they have access to exporting oil. so it's important for us to try to assist them in getting that political process back on track

and part of that is making sure that they understand all the different factions inside of iraq. when you alienate factions you tend to provide opportunities for nonstate actors such as al qaeda and other terrorist elements to try to exploit that. i think that's the message as we move forward that it's important to bring everybody into the political process and continue to improve economically and continue to assist them in understanding how you fight the potential insurgencies. >> given the uncertainty in iraq at this point how do you answer questions from veterans and soldiers about that marriott's time they spend there? there is a piece recently published by paul and i don't want to mispronounce his last name, soldier who wrote a piece about questioning the service there entitled tell me again, why did my friends die in iraq at what you say to people

thinking along those lines? >> well first off, there are many of us who spent a long time in iraq. there are many of us who have personal sacrifices inside of iraq and afghanistan. the bottom line is we raise our right hand in order to defend the constitution of the united states and when we do that we are prepared to go forward and do what is necessary as we are asked to do by her civilian leadership in order to provide security for this nation. that is what we did in iraq at a time when it was believed that we needed to go there. our military went. we were prepared and we went. i believe they left it in a way that enabled it to move forward. we eliminated a ruthless dictator which we tend to forget about, and incredibly ruthless individual who as i was there longer and longer, the stores i was told by many different iraqis to include their military

such a gruesome like they had to live in iraq under the leadership of their leader saddam hussein. i think you have to look at it in those viewpoints. we raised our right hand and we did our job. we left it in a way that was -- it's incredibly difficult for us to deal with the lives that were lost. no matter what the cause is, it's difficult to deal with lives lost in afghanistan. it's difficult to deal with lives lost in iraq. it's difficult to deal with lives lost in a car accident of a military member or suicide of a military movement because we are brother and sister in arms and there's a relationship there that is felt -- dealt that we'll never forget. i can never explain properly to anybody and someone gives their life but the bottom line what i do know in each and every one of those cases they raised their hand and volunteered to be part

of the army. they were proud to do this mission and be involved with that. many of them died doing the things that they wanted to do and that is what i remember. i remember their service and their sacrifice and i remember that they were dedicated to themselves something much greater than themselves personally. that is what the army is about and that is what i remember even though i know it's very lives we look back at the sacrifices. see what sort of future do you see for iraq besides the small staff left and the embassy, what sort of a role do you see for the u.s.? >> when i was over there i used to have people come and visit me. i would show them a map and if you look at that iraq is right in the center of the middle east. to the west to syria, jordan and to the east as i ran into the as

kuwait and saudi arabia. to the north is turkey. it was in a strategic location inside of the middle east. it's very important location. for us in my mind it's an important country in the middle east. we are still allies and partners with iraq. we have to build on that partnership. we have to make a partnership that allows us to build security in that region and i think that is what we have to do. right now it's disappointing what's going on. nobody's going to deny that. but again they're still potential. there is economic potential. i believe there is political potential and we have taken the 10 you to work hard to help them to reach a state where they can be a good strong partner of the united states in order for us to sustain the right level of stability. i would either first one to admit that today that is looking a bit shaky but we have to keep

working very hard as we move forward. >> looking over to afghanistan as you prepare for troop withdrawal they are, what lessons do you have from the iraq drawdown to apply to afghanistan and? >> so i think even though we are very cognizant of the fact that afghanistan is very different culturally and very different security wise, the difference between iraq and afghanistan there are some parallels that are important. one is i think we have the military, the afghan army, the afghan police today are showing signs that they are being very successful in handling the security system. we have turned almost completely over the security operation to them last year in april and they have gone through a very significant fighting season with the taliban and actually performed very well. they have proven that they can do it. they have proven that they have the leadership to do it.

the one thing that we have left to do though is we still have to help them in developing their institutions because it's about sustaining this for the long term. so we have to help them and develop the institutions to help them to sustain an army through personal policies, through systemic policies, through developing leaders and their institutions because that is what makes it long-lasting. that is what we have to focus on now. i think that is why we are anxious and hopefully we will get the esa signed so we can talk about the residual forces. their responsibility will be developing an institution, and developing a long-standing success story. i think that's important that we do that and i'm hoping that fact will be moving forward with that. >> how prepared right now are afghan security forces to operate on their own and what hurdles stand in the way of them being successful with that?

>> i kind of talk to some of that. i think they are very capable. the one area where they are not enablers and we talk about enablers some cases aviation support, logistical support, leadership development, those are the things that we need to help them with for the long-term sustainment of the military. what they have proven over the last 10 months is their ability to be aggressive, fight the enemy, to continue to enlist soldiers even though they have had casualties. we are seeing a broad success in their leadership at the tactical and operational level but really what we have to do now is they said earlier, building institutions that allow them to sustain overlong period of time. >> looking to the issue of sexual assault which you mention mentioned in your opening remarks what are the plans to stop future or sexual assault in

the army and should trials be taken outside of the military chain of command? >> so, sexual assault is a complex problem that has to be dealt with on several different levels. first in my mind there's a long-term issue of culture. it is a culture that frankly everybody understands, is simply not acceptable and it will not be tolerated. whether it be in the military or anywhere else. i'm concerned about the army and it will not be tolerated in the army. the best way to ensure that it's not tolerated is the chain of command's involvement in enforcing the standards and policies that we have today. that includes uniform code of military justice.

that defines how we discipline the force. people around the world will tell you the u.s. army and all of the military, the united states military is an incredibly disciplined force. that is one of our great strengths. our ability to train, our ability to execute and deal with complex problems. we have to put that energy towards solving this problem. by taking away a tool that i think is incredibly effective to us which is the uniform code of military justice is a mistake. what we need to do is hold the leaders accountable who are not using the tools we have given them such as the uniform cord -- uniform code of military justice to solve this problem. don't take a tool away. what we have to do is hold those accountable who are not using the tool properly. the chain of command is the essence of who we are. my experience tells me i trust the chain of command.

i trust the commanders. that doesn't mean 100% that commanders are doing the right thing. and those who are not we have to hold accountable. that is what we have to do. we have to make sure we are taking care of our victims. we are providing them the resources in order for them to move forward, that they don't become victims again and again and again in what i mean by that is not a victim of sexual assault but a victim of process. and we have to put procedures in place that ensure that doesn't happen, that we protect our victims and we take care for victims and that everybody understands how we take care of our victims. the best way to do that is a strong chain of command. this is a problem throughout our society. it bothers me that in the u.s. army we should be the ones who solve this problem. we have dedicated ourselves and

we will continue to dedicate ourselves to this. we have added an increase in reports of sexual assault. i predicted that. i knew that was going to happen because people are understanding now and taking this seriously and many of their rep ports are ones that happened five years ago, four years ago, six years ago. people are now coming forward. we still have a long way to go in the pressure we are getting is good because that will help us to continue to make sure that we stay on point to solve this problem. for me, as the chief of staff of the army this is fundamental. as a soldier we are supposed to have complete trust in each other. for us to be successful we have to trust the person on our right and our left and it doesn't matter if it's a male or a female. it doesn't matter the color of your skin. it doesn't matter your religion. we have to be able to trust each other and as long as we have sexual as alvin sexual

harassment that goes against the fabric of who we are. that is the trust that we have to have to sustain ourselves. so we have to get after it. and we will continue to go after it. it's also important because of talent. i want the best talent in the military. in order to get the best time i've got to create the environment that allows all of our soldiers to be able to maximize their potential. the number of females serving rowing and we have got to make sure that we created an environment that allows them to be successful ,-com,-com ma that they can maximize their potential so we can utilize their talent, so we can continue to be successful as a military and to me that that's a critical to us as we move forward. >> you mentioned culture change

in this area is necessary. to what extent is military culture where women historically were were not equal to men contribute to the problem of? >> there are lots of things that can should be to the culture problem. i remind everybody that we get people from all different backgrounds. when somebody comes into the army, we get people from different fiscal backgrounds. we get people from different family backgrounds. we get people from different religious backgrounds. we get people from different parts of the country. we represent the united states so what's what's important to us is as we bring them into the army, they have to understanunderstand what are the norms of the army culture. and we have to make sure that they start from the day they step in the army that we have a different culture and we are going to enforce it. we are not going to tolerate those who don't. we are not there but that is

what is key. that has got to start from the time you come into the day you leave and it really is in my mind about understanding that. because many people come from -- one of the things i've learned when i came into the army, i was really naïve. i was very fortunate. when i grew up in northern new jersey i had a strong family. i had a mother and father. i had uncles and aunts and the grandfather and grandmother who cared about me and who made sure they nurtured me who could set me on the right path with moral and ethical values. not everybody comes from that background. it took me two or three years in the army to figure that out. because i was sheltered. many of our young men and women who come in the army maybe have one parent, maybe has no parents, maybe comes from a dysfunctional background and we

have to mold them into a force and a culture that allows them to succeed. we have many success stories that i could talk about. people from most backgrounds today are very successful but we now have got to make sure we do that as a culture. my guess is and i say this all the time, there's probably 10% of the army who leave that women shouldn't be in the army. i want to identify them and say that's no longer the kind of person we need in our army today because that is not what our country -- country represents. you are always going to have that but what you have to develop as a culture that doesn't tolerate that kind of an attitude. and that is where we have to work towards. >> the defense departments sexual assault response panel is holding two different hearings this week. why aren't those hearings open

to the public and the press? >> i don't know. [laughter] >> when you find out you can get back to us. [laughter] >> i asked that question to congress during the hearings. >> speaking of women in the military the army and other services have been ordered to -- exclusion for women. when do you expect the army will open ranger schools and other schools that remain closed to women and when they do with the curriculum or requirements for the courses change? >> so, last year the secretary defense secretary panetta signed an order that says there is no more exclusion of females from, no restrictions on females for any duties within all the services. as part of that they are given a

period of time i have to report back in the beginning of january of 2016, the end of 2015 i have to rip wart back on how we are going to do that. what we are doing now is we are going through a very significant process somehow we will integrate women into all mo s.'s in the army. we have taken outside expertise, insight expertise. we are developing common standards and it's really basically three or four branche, armor and infantry in the army. and we are now developing those common standards and figuring out what they will be as we begin to integrate women into those mo s.'s and specialties. and by the end of 15 i will have to report out to say yes we are integrating in all of those so i have got to be able to make an

argument on why we should in my view is we are heading in the right direction we should be able to integrate by the end of 15. the other thing we are looking at is the initiatives that it takes in order to set them up for success. how do we shape this in such a way that we don't just throw women into these jobs without the right preparation. what i mean is not preparation of the individual but reparation of having the right leaders in place ,-com,-com ma having mentors in place, having an environment that allows them to be successful in doing work, to study that and as we move down this process and as we open more positions to women we will then review the schools that open to women. the one thing that i will say that i've been very adamant about is we will not reduce standards. the standards will remain the same and all the women that i've talked to do not want the standards changed.

they wanted to be standards-based and that is why it's important we study this and get it right. i think we are on the right path we have opened up some artillery jobs that were not opened up this year already two female officers and the female soldiers and we will begin to be that slowly over time as we work our way through this process. >> looking to spending challenges can you comment on how sequestration, the shutdown last year and general partisan bickering have affected the military readiness? >> so there are several issues with sequestration and let me first talk about the shutdown. the impact of the shutdown frankly has been in my mind on the morale of our civilian

workforce, who has been dedicating themselves to the army, to the navy, to the air force and the department of defense for some time. there are two things that happened based on sequestration. it originally started out a 12 day they went to a six-day furlough and then immediately after that we had a shutdown. so they have lost their confidence based on the security that they have had. we have got to regain that confidence in our skilled workforce. and so that is one of the challenges. now let me talk a little bit router about the readiness issues. so, there are two issues with sequestration. first from my perspective is that the upfront reductions that were part of sequestration made it impossible to properly manage

the enterprise of the army, the u.s. navy and the u.s. air force and i will talk for the army. you have got to remember that our budget is based on really three major things, people, our ability to modernize ourselves and our readiness and there are lots of things under readiness and several things that are modernization and there's capitalization and other things that we do. you have to keep those in the right balance. sequestration forces us to go right out of talents because i can't take out people fast enough to get the dollars to put in the readiness and modernization in order to keep that balance. so what it has created in the army as we have about a three year window, 14, 1516 where we are really out talent so our readiness and are modernization programs are taking a hit because i can't take e. plaut bassinet. we are taking out about 20,000 a year.

if i go higher than that they cost me more to take them out in silvie start start reducing the savings that we are gaining from the people. so that is the dilemma that we have. so what it did is impacted our readiness in 13. now the agreement that was made in december a bipartisan budget agreement, helps us significantly and 14. so it dies back, gives us those monies to buy back some of the readiness. 15 is a lower number. the problem is is that is great for 14 and i'm thankful for that. that we have got that money is if we don't sustain it we are going to go right back to where we were in terms of this problem between the balance of end strength, readiness and modernization's that we have got to keep that. right now if we go to sequestration i can't get that imbalance in about 2020 --

until about 2020 so what that does is that gives us a period of six years of vulnerability because of this imbalance. that is the struggle we are having right now as we work our way through this and that is my concern. i would just say on top of that i believe the sequestration number is too low because i believe it doesn't allow us to do things in this world as we watch it every day as it continues to have significant uncertainty. the american people expect us to respond and we will. but the cost will be the soldiers that we send will not be ready life we want them to be or we might not be able to sustain an operation for his long as we need to because we don't have the numbers. so up until 2020 is a readiness issue and past 20 twentieths a size issue. are we big enough to do the missions we will be asked to do? i myth that worried about that

number in the end especially with the army. >> is the army still planning to have its end strength at 420,000 given the situation with assigned bill? >> there are no decisions made and we will continue to work that. what we have done is if the army is going to move to 490,000 by the end of 15 instead of 17 we have sped that up and the reason we have sped that up is to better balance the readiness and modernization. that is the 20,000 a year that i talked about. as i stand here today, we started at 570 and we are about 527,000 or so. we will be down to 510,000 by the end of this year and by the end of 15 we will be down to 490,000. and we will make decisions on

where we go from there. we are constantly working that internally right now to told the resources that we will need. >> national guard is advocating for an expanded role saying it can provide combat troops at a fraction of the cost of the army. what is your view of his proposal? >> so first is the army for many years now is structured to be complimentary and what i mean by that is you have an active component that has a certain capability. you have the national guard that has a certain capability and the u.s. army reserve that is a certain capability. the capabilities are not interchangeable. there's a reason why it's more expensive. it brings you a higher level of readiness because they are full-time. they are trained and ready to do things at a higher level because they spend every day focused on

that. our national guard who's done an incredible job in the last 10 years trains 39 days he year. and that covers personnel, training so when you're talking about integrating organizations, they are not interchangeable. so, to say that the national guard is cheaper in the active component, it's not true. the active component cannot be placed in the national guard. big give us the capability that are complementary to each other so it's about getting the right talents between the two. in the 2000's when we are involved in the two wars in iraq and afghanistan we increase the active component and the percentage of it was 51% at 749% in the reserve. as we get finished with their reductions which are mostly all

coming out of the active component we will go to 54% in the reserve and 42 in the active. what that means is as we go forward and if we have to go lower than 490 and the active component we will have to take a percentage out of the guard and reserve and we are still working working on what those numbers are. it's about keeping that right or centage. percentage. 53% in reserve and 46% inactive. based on the analysis that gives us the right level of acts of readiness and also gives us the ability for the national guard to respond over longer periods of time and it allows the national guard to continue to be responsive within their own states. and we think that is about the right balance. now, it if we have to go to those numbers which is full

sequestration nobody agrees with those numbers. that's based on budget levels and as i mentioned earlier i think they might give it to low that we will still work our way through that. this will happen. it's not something that happens tomorrow. this production will continue to happen between now through the end of this decade as we move forward. >> the proposed cuts to military pensions have been of course a lightning rod on both sides of that issue. tell us if you make the cuts that have been proposed to recent retirees who are not yet of retirement age is that breaking a promise that was made to those people when they join the military? >> the issue of paid compensation is it take issue and an important issue. i'm not going to discuss specific he what was passed in

the last bill but i want to talk about paid compensation in general terms. the way i would describe this is that back in the late 90s and 2000 there was a gap between those serving in the military and those with equivalent education levels, experience etc. in our civilian year. everyone has worked very hard to close that gap and i would argue in fact we have closed the gap. and in fact in some cases you can see that. it's time to us to -- for us to look at paying something sustainable. if we continue along the path we are on at the cost of soldiers, sailors airmen and marines it will be at such a level that we will have to reduce or end strength bar because they can't afford them.

and so what we are trying to do now is to something that is reasonable. we are not cutting pay and benefits. we are trying to reduce the rate of growth of pay and benefits. so we are looking at packages that will allow us -- it's got to be a comprehensive package that does those. what i worry about is we can't be piecemeal because we have to understand what the whole impacts are on our soldiers and is it enough for us to keep the all-volunteer force? so it's important we look at it as a total package. we are attempting to do that. we are still working our way through it. but it's something that you have to be very careful about how you do this. because what you don't want to do is, what you don't want to do is undercut the foundation and all-volunteer army or navy for armed forces because it could

have an impact as you move through. it's something that has to be really done in a very comprehensive way and we are looking that at-bat with the joint chiefs and we are looking at a package that will be fair to our soldiers, our retirees and their families but also understand that we have to reduce the cost as we go into the future. >> what do you think of chairman issa's proposal to link rolling back the cuts in military benefit increases to being able to and saturday delivery at the postal service? is it a wise move to link the future of army benefits with the future of the postal service? >> i concern myself with what i just said, taking care of our soldiers and their families and veterans and our retirees. my focus is on ensuring we do that properly. so i am not --

i have not thought about it in links to anything else. what i'm worried about is making sure we have the right compensation package for our men and women who serve and make sure that we are able to sustain an all-volunteer force that enables us to sustain the level of national security in our country. >> looking to asia, what is the army doing to support the defense strategic guidance called for a rebalance in the asia-pacific region and what does that mean for other regions especially in the middle east? >> so what a lot of people don't realize is today as i stand here we have about, somewhere between 84 and 88,000 soldiers assigned to command. that's quite an investment that we have in the army. that is available to the pacific

commander to shape the environment within the pacific command and we are doing it through a it through a variety of ways through rotational presence. we are doing it by building partner capacity. we are doing that from building relationships throughout the region. several different exercises so we will continue to do that. what happened though is in the years of the wars of iraq and afghanistan many of those soldiers that were assigned were off in iraq and afghanistan. last year we stopped that so they are now back in the pacific region conduct dinghies proper operations so that is on balance as we call it. i mentioned quick before about the concept of regional alignment of forces. what we will do is those units assigned to our forces command which is mostly unit in the continental united states they will be aligned with such calm. it will be aligned with africom. they will be aligned with other

areas in order for them to be used in order to support those combatant commanders. for example today we have about 2500 soldiers in africa based on the regional concept. we have 45 soldiers would have been there for several weeks in southern sudan providing security for the embassy. those are the kinds of missions we will use with the soldiers we have from the continental united united states using them in an expeditionary manner in order for us to move forward in building security capabilities around the world. the example i like to use is through four weeks ago we had a 15 man platoon manned by a female to ethiopia to conduct training in military assistance activities. those are the kinds of things we will do to continue to support combatant commanders as we come out of, we have rotation of forces currently in the middle east in varying places in the

middle east. we will continue to support that as long as there is a required from the combatant commanders. we are allowing them to become experts in that region so they understand what they're getting involved with and are better able to execute the missions that are given. we have significant soldiers assigned in the pacific which helps us with that and we will use forces in the intercontinental united states in order to continue doubtless engaging key areas such as north africa, such as places in the middle east which will enable us to continue to provide what is necessary to them to prevent conflict in the future. >> how do you resolve the conflict with the marines related to the. >> there is no complex. i find this very interesting. this is a washington thing. it really is. this is a washington thing. the marines and army can't operate the same? we have been doing it in iraq

and afghanistan for 12 years. this is about utilizing every service to accomplishing mission. this is not about army versus marine corps. this is about us utilizing, we have distinct assets and they have distinct assets. it's about making this available to the pacom commander for him to execute his mission. we don't base the size of the army on our region of lawn emissions. that is what our sizes based on so this is a washington thing. so this is not a competition between the marine corps and the army. this is about providing the capabilities that we each have to support the combatant commanders who are given the responsibility to maintain security around the world. >> can you comment on the deployment of the calvary brigade announced to korea today does this represent a permanent increase in army commitments to korea or temporary or a

replacement of forward-based units? >> so, what's going on is as we have, as we are coming out of iraq and afghanistan one of the things we made -- decisions we made in the army is we are restructuring our combat teams. during the wars we went to two battalion brigades and i don't want to get too into the weeds here but we did that mainly in order to meet our requirements in iraq and afghanistan. in the past we have had three battalion brigades which do all the analysis have done allows us to do the things we need to do. we have the two battalion brigade so this rotation of this battalion is rounding out this brigade to be a third battalion like we are doing in the rest of the army. we will continue to rotate those units. this is something we have planned for it while in something we are executing now

and it allows us then to make sure we are consistent as we apply the resources of our army not only in korea but other places around the world. >> it want to be sure to talk a little bit about china before run out of time. you have expressed your concern about cybersecurity threats from china and was china has to lead a new air defense zone. can you talk a little bit about your concerns there and what the army's role will be in addressing those two issues? >> what i would like to do is talk about cyberwar in general as i think it's an important topic. sigh byrd, cyberoperations and cyberdefense is important as we continue to move forward. in some cases it's a form of maneuver. what it is it's relatively, relatively now inexpensive way

to attempt to impact issues around the world and i'm not going to point fingers at china or iran or russia or anybody else but it's about a capability that people can now split in order to try to gain advantages and from a military perspective it's about how do we use that and how do we understand that to protect our networks and protect their systems and how does that impact future warfare? because it is going to impact future warfare and we have to understand that. from a national issue this is about our ability to protect their infrastructure and it's an important issue. we have to recognize that this is a new form of people attempting potentially to influence was going on in the united states. i think it's incumbent on us to improve our capability. in the army we are reorganizing

ourselves. we are going to stand up as cybercenter of excellence in to create the capabilities and expertise to deal with this. we are to have some capability but we are going to expand it as we move forward. but as you know there are important and fundamental legal and policy issues that have to be worked through as we continue to deal with this new threat. for me that is probably the most important thing. in terms of china and the establishment of what they consider to be a sovereign fly zone to china, again this is about us working through some very difficult issues in order for us to it ensure that we sustain a level of security

necessary for us and the best interests of our allies and building strong relations with china so we maintain a level of security that allows economies to continue to grow. this is something we have to constantly work with them and constantly work with our partners in the region as we move forward. >> we are unfortun we have joseph ortman the ceo of amtrak and on january 15 we have christine lagarde the head of the imf. secondly i would like to present to you our traditional national press club coffee mug. >> thank you. you can never have too many

mugs. thank you very much. >> thank you and on last question. we try to end on a lighthearted note paradigm told that you are a big new york giants fan. >> that's not a light note. [laughter] >> eli manning preceded you a couple of years ago is a national press club speech are. i wanted to know if you have any lessons learned from your army service, strategy, drone strikes, anything that you can use as a device for the giant's? [laughter] >> first off i am very close friends with tom coughlin who is the coach and i've also gotten to know very well at eli manning. we have some work to do. [laughter] the only thing i'm positive of his we did be the redskins twice this year. i know that is not saying much but you have to live on whatever

you have. [laughter] what i will say is i think actually we saw some great leadership by leaders of the giants during difficult times. they played hard right down to the last game even though they were out of it and i think that will help them as they move forward area that is the kind of spirit we have in army as well. we will fight to the last possible minute in order to be successful. i'm confident that the giants will be successful. [applause] >> thank you very much. [applause] >> thank you general for coming today. i would also like to thank her national press club staff including our journalism institute and center for helping organize today's event. finally here's a reminder. you can find more information about the national press about our web site at www.press.org. you can also find a copy of today's program on there.

thank you. we are adjourned. [applause] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] ..

[inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations]

later our spotlight on magazines. washington journal is live every morning at 7:00 a.m. eastern on c-span. this morning, thomas donohue gives his annual state of american business speech. you can see it live on c-span 3. the release of a report on states and health care costs. that is live at noon eastern on c-span 3. >> if i were to identify the single most important challenge

to overcome as muslims it would the notion that diversity is available. the reason we're here is this inclination. it is anti-historical. ofnies plurality, hundreds years of diversity, and subscribes to the idea that you follow from the second century and a very limited, short. of time -- period of time. our journey as american muslims has to be about refusing being told by clerics who speak for us that islam is a seventh century reality. we are americans and muslims of

the 21st century. -- being night at 9:00 muslim in america. we will be discussing mark levan's the liberty amendment. >> the council on foreign relations released a survey outlining potential global threats for this year. syrian civiled the war and other threats as some of the top priorities for 2014. discussed the report. it is 90 minutes.

>> let me remind everybody that this meeting is on the record. we want to do this efficiently and let you know that the video and audio will be available on the website. introduceleasure to the panelists. you have their complete bios on the roster for today's meeting. let me introduce them officially for those people who are watching via videotape. had avid gordon, who has distinguished career. he served as chairman of the

national intelligence council and director of policy planning at the state department to read -- department. i believe you can find the eurasia report at eurasia.net. -- hetime with david here was my senior thesis advisor when i was undergraduate and i am deeply indebted for him to inspire me to this career. i hope i have made you proud. >> yes you have. >> to my right is mark schneider. mark has held numerous positions in government. state andretary of state department chief of the office of analysis and future

planning. he has been at the international crisis group for 13 years. he is quite a veteran of these issues. the seniorhave fellow for conflict prevention. positions atenior the u.s. institute of peace, stanford university, and the brookings institution. he has written or edited 10 books on world affairs. are we going to go left to right? left to right. dr. gordon. >> thank you very much. it is a great pleasure to be year.

-- here. it is great to have a good discussion about what is going to happen in the coming year. let me start with some of the themes at the global, macrolevel. in 2014,k at the world the striking thing is that the set of issues that dominated global macro concerns since the financial crisis has begun to retreat. of risks of another round really bad financial instability and that has been the focus of a lot of what we have done analytically since 2008. we don't see a lot of risk their, either in europe or in the u.s.

in the emerging markets, there is, but it is likely to take on a different characteristic, not a financial risk per se, but much more of a divergence. but the geopolitical level, that is where we see all sorts of uncertainty. our top risk for the year really has to do with america's troubled alliances. year that set in motion some very, very powerful forces that served to weaken the perception of commitment by the united states in the eyes of american allies around the world.

-- one wasn events an event, the other was a slow rolling out. affairst was the snowden and the whole set of consequences around the affair uncertaintyalso the with which the administration has dealt with what happened with snowden. are they backing msa? are they not backing msa? -- nsa? lack of a strategic response by the administration. in particular, this has put a huge risk on what had been a growing relationship between the u.s. government and high-tech firms on cyber security issues, -- thaterrorism issues

-- butually beneficial the trust factor there is gone in the part of the private sector. toive a speech two weeks ago a group of silicon valley ceos. toward the obama administration on the handling of these issues was absolutely stunning. driver was second the vacillation around syria. .t is less of an outcome it is less of what happened in syria and more about the process of setting up red lines, driving what looked like a run-up to a

military action and the lack of consultation with allies -- the lack of a strategic focus. what was the president trying to do? when allies here president obama talk about syria as a foreign- policy success, they wince. ,or a lot of relationships these things are thorns. , foranada, for the u.k. japan. , for lot of other allies particularly u.s. alliances in the middle east -- for a lot of countries in asia, in the

pacific -- they really raised questions on the reliability of the durability of security guarantees and where is this all headed? this uncertainty about the u.s. role -- what is the obama administration strategy? what are its priorities? i think this was reinforced on the trade side, with all of the buildup around the transpacific art and are ship, closing the transpacific partnership. the administration saying it is tradess' role to get promotion authority -- which flies in the face of all of the prior experience where administrations of gone and made requests and made compelling cases. i have worked on the hill when we did the u.s.-canada-mexico.

president clinton set up a war rome in the white house -- war r oom in the white house. there has been nothing of this. the second theme here is u.s. external uncertainty. the second big driver is china internal. is new chinese leadership very focused on reforming domestically, getting china to a more sustainable economic policy. that issomething stunning to me. in the last 10 years, for all of the talk about reform, there was less and less big reform. the new leadership clearly have the view that time is not on their side. ,hat unless they move quickly

they will not make the series of reforms that they need. itself is process potentially very destabilizing. lots of losers. that theical strategy chinese leadership has chosen to undertake this is re- centralization and strengthening the core leadership of the communist party and undertaking a very, very sharp anticorruption campaign and setting up control mechanisms. strengthening control mechanisms. is that it ishis undertaking a liberalizing economic policy through leninist means. is that going to work? we don't know. , this willnot work be a huge source of instability

over the coming years. i think president obama, in his meeting with the chinese president, was absolutely correct when he said that the united states has a huge stake in china successfully enabling these reforms. third big theme globally was the from thece of al qaeda series of setbacks that it suffered, culminating in the killing of osama bin laden. geography -- the core was syria. syriannd the whole conflict is looking increasingly like afghanistan in the 1980's and iraq in the last decade -- a magnet for jihadist and a focal

point for increasing extremism. the new form of al qaeda is somewhat different from original al qaeda. the defining characteristic of al qaeda as an organization of and by osama bin laden was a focus on the foreign enemy. jihad is him in al qaeda 2.0 has gone local. the brand is the brand, but it is all about local power, it is all about building local alliances. commona 2.0 has more in with hezbollah then with al qaeda, original al qaeda. those of the big macro themes. i want to close by focusing on the two regions that are of big concern and drawing a contrast between them.

you have a lot of geopolitical risk and tension in the greater middle east and in asia and the pacific. in the fundamentally asia-pacific son, economic interdependence and a focus internally still place an enormously constraining role on the likelihood of that -- of conflict escalating in that part of the world, as does the continued viability of u.s. security presence in the region and the guarantees of the united states to asian allies. east, youn the middle have a lack of interdependence and you have a lack of any kind of a credible security guarantee. i think that there still is a

security guarantee for the gulf, saudi's,traits -- the ees other goal fees -- gulfr -- they have a whole conspiratorial view about u.s. iranian relationship. the middle east is not come close to hitting bottom yet. i think 2014 we are already seeing a refocusing of jihadist pressures into iraq. i think that will continue. tilt.n is on a fragile this spreads up into turkey. is onedle east region that we are extraordinarily concerned about. i wanted to throw these ideas out there as the big themes we can come back and talk about. >> thank you, david.

mark. thank you for the opportunity to participate in a third joint look at the dangers pressing against our living room windows. always, for as setting a strategic framework. 2014 will be a very hard year for those who make or conduct foreign-policy in the obama administration. anotheru.n., it will be year of greater responsibilities and fewer resources to meet the challenges and more criticism for failing to prevent and bring conflicts to an end. for most of the people in the countries we are discussing, it will be another year of misery, senseless violence, anger toward the west for coming to their aid, particularly against the united states.

the op-ed was published for the fourth year in a row and i want --emphasize the criteria these conflicts are where we have the greatest concern about the magnitude of loss of life in 2014 if they explode. or with respect to ongoing conflicts, the same concerns given the likelihood of increased intensity of those conflicts in the coming year and where the capability or willingness of national political forces or the international community to mitigate those dangers is lacking. thatyear, i cited issues cut across the various countries. i think those are still relevant. the absence of a rule of law. the inability of the state to ensure monopoly on the use of

force to protect its borders, enforce the law, or protect the citizens. a phenomenon of radical islamist extremists essentially taking advantage of internal battles to their own ends. the continuing absence of neatly packaged peace agreements where all of the parties are at the table. that does not exist. year,y, effect from last -- a fact from last year, none of these conflicts are contained within the borders of the named countries. they all bleed across borders. in many instances, their neighbors contribute to the continuation of those conflicts. i am not going to limit myself to the 10 that you see in the

list. , given the short term potential for the extent of violence in the lead up to the april elections, clearly poses the threat of additional violence. if the elections replicate the elections of 20 09. there are positive reasons for the ones dropping off the list from leicester. kenya -- last year. kenya. ethnic cleansing was prevented that cut the country apart six years ago. pakistan did not make the list this year a cousin successfully its transition from one government to another.

third, turkey and the pkk dropped off the list because they seem to be holding to the cease-fire. fourth, drc -- extremely fragile. nevertheless, the diplomatic ,trategy that was put together in fact, have brought the regional parties in ways to dampen down the confrontation. along with the more aggressive military posture -- they have taken down the m 23 and hopefully have put controls on the other militias and eastern congo. there are five new countries. they pose greater risk this year to widespread loss of life in

2014. central african republic. the number of displaced has november and000 in a month later, 600,000. today, one million. even with the intervention of france and the peacekeeping, the killing continues between christian and muslim. the power struggle has not been ended. reality that libya in 2014 has the potential for additional violence. militias roaming the country. the islamicist, liberal, conservative or loose -- revolution. bangladesh. back to the 1971 war of liberation for pakistan.

turnout at the elections on sunday. substantial violence. honduras. the murder capital of the world. transnational cartels by off gangs to participate in the alyssa transport of drugs. 87% of all the cocaine coming into the united states by air goes through honduras. the north caucasus. the olympics in sochi. more than four and skiers are coming to sochi. foreign skiers are coming to sochi. the other five conflicts of the new ones. the continuing once are because the intensity has increased. south sudan and sudan.

in both countries, each faces multiple points of political violence with ethnic and sectarian overtones. unfortunately, with unresolved issues that go back many years and have not been resolved are the secession of south sudan. the explosions in recent weeks have already led to atrocities and the troops are still aiming for juba. despite the discussions, the unresolved political competition threaten the future of the countries. khartoum's failure to come up with a comprehensive to deal with the separatist concerns and regions and bring them into the national government set a new powder cake for the north itself. david has already indicated syria.

no closer to resolution. the death toll reached 200,000 over last year. it has engulfed lebanon virtually. impact on the region, not just syria. lebanon's population has been swollen by 25% by syrian refugees. askew lebanon's own sectarian balance. despite the success in resolving the chemical weapons issue, the one hope for ending the fundamental conflict that rests on the u.s.-russian accord is slimmer than ever. there is a glimmer somewhere that the rainy and nuclear limoneira accord might lead to iranian nuclear accord might lead to an iranian

role at the table. the government simply did not and the suffering the consequences of it shortsighted exclusion of sunni leadership, particularly -- it is also grappling with the negative impact of syrian conflict. northern nigeria remains a tinderbox. the final country on our list is central asia. it is not a country. it is a subregion. every one of the countries faces the possibility for a very violent transition because the family -- the autocrats that control the countries -- have not set in motion any institution to provide for transition.

alln the fact that they are vulnerable to extremists coming back from afghanistan and the other wars, the possibility of a major outbreak of violence is of great concern. conflictsion, deadly usually has long roots in a state's inability or lack of interest in providing all of their citizens basic services, due process, and security. auditory rule to benefit -- predatory rule to benefit the elite, ethnic division, and denial of human rights. thank you. >> over to you, paul. we are going to go high-tech. >> i hope. thank you all for coming out on this chilly morning. i am going to talk to you about the results of our latest preventive priorities survey. as many of you know, we do this on an annual basis.

it is the sixth time we have done it. for those of you familiar with the survey some of the basic premise is that the romany conceivable sources of political instability around the world. the u.s. has an interest in preventing and mitigating, but they are not equally important in terms of the challenge they pose to u.s. interest. is torpose of the survey help u.s. policymakers make choices among the various competing priorities, given the limited or finite resources and , as well as the appetite of the american public to engage in preventive action overseas. is to help u.s. policymakers pick and choose among these competing priorities. the actualt into

results of the survey this year, i thought i would weekly review how we do this survey each year. basically, we begin with initial crowd sourcing through social media outlets of the principal concerns of the foreign policy community. the contingencies that will be the basis of the survey each year. on the basis of that, we select 30 contingencies that make up the survey. then we send out the survey instrument to 1200 government officials, experts, nongovernmental officials, academics. we ask them to rank each contingency on the basis of how likely they think it will be in 2014 and what is the relative impact on u.s. interest

according to basic criteria that we lay out in the survey. on the basis of the results, we into threeesults tiers of relative priorities for u.s. policymakers and we do it according to this basic risk matrix. if you want to learn more about the methodology, you can read survey. in the actual i think it is on page 4. the basic through survey results. i am going to use this new, interactive, global conflict pps andto highlight the serve as a basic resource for the community on conflicts around the world that we have identified as being particularly important for 2014. as you can see, when you go onto

the global conflict tracker, you come up with a map. on the left, you can organize the various conflicts by relative likelihood. high, moderate, low. relative moderate importance to u.s. interest. then you can filter them across the map. these are the tier one contingencies. bright red. secondly, the tier two. and the tier three. you can go on any one of those, click on any one of these, and each one will bring up a background -- a conflict brief -- which lays out basic information about the conflict, an update on latest news, major reports that are available, and

other resources that are very useful. i am not aware of any other resource of this kind out there. we are hoping this will be of use. this will be regularly updated so that it is not a sort of one- shot effort. with that general introduction, let me go through the tier one contingencies that were identified this year. no great surprises. many of the tier one contingencies from last year showed up this year. the threatrned about of a major terrorist attack, as well as a cyber attack, on the united states. the situation with iran is hardly resolved.

there was concern that the interim agreement might unravel. in termsan is up there of the likelihood of increased violence as a result of the drawdown of u.s. forces, coalition forces in general, and the uncertainty about what will happen post-2014. pakistan is still considered unstable to most experts in terms of its internal situation. there are some encouraging signs , but overall, people are still unconvinced about the long-term stability of pakistan. focus of concern. prevented priority, and we can demonstrate how, but this new tracker offers to the community. as you saw, we collect on the --

we clicked on the symbol for syria and it takes you to this conflict a brief. you just scroll down a little bit, you got a sense of what is available. there were not only tweets, red portion on the left inside, also give you an update on the situation in syria, a crisis alert we are calling it. but if you just scroll down a little further here, you see the latest information from around the web, breaking news, primary sources on the conflict. so again, this i think shows how useful this will be in terms of a resource on each of these conflicts. getting back to the tier one contingencies again, i mentioned that somewhere the same from last year. we have a i think for new tier

one contingencies that were upgraded from last year, strengthening of al qaeda in the arabian peninsula, and general instability in yemen was identified. north korea remains a major concern. not only about the erratic behavior of the leadership there, but the possibility of various military in the coming year whether nuclear or missile related. the growing civil violence in iraq, and a possibility for full-blown civil war also made it into tier one this year. and, finally, spillover from the syrian conflict into jordan was also highlighted this year. let me turn now to the tier two contingencies. see them on the map there.

again, some of the concerns from last year showed up in this year's survey. continuing uncertainty about egypt's political stability, nigeria, particularly northern nigeria, a possibility of a major crisis between india and pakistan. we have seen an uptick in violence in kashmir along the line of control, and also finally libya was mentioned as a concern, growing concern among many respondents. interestingly, east china sea, south china sea did not make it into the tier one category this year, which was somewhat surprising. it could be due to the timing of the survey, which was done in november before the recent increased tensions over the territorial disputes, particularly between china and japan but it may be because of

what david said at the outset of some general confidenc competene economic independence between countries in east asia and the u.s. security guarantee make people feel that, while a source of concern, while not actually become a major source of actual hot conflict, if you will. some new contingencies that made it into to tear this year, some of which have been mentioned by mark. somalia, a possibility as, with the war in somalia with al-shabaab plays out and we could see an uptick in violence, particularly in neighboring countries as a result of terrorist attacks by al-shabaab and, of course, th the central african republic is a source of great concern to many. again, you can find out more about chr by clicking on that and going into the get the

latest information. let me just quickly turn to the tier three, the third level of priorities identified this year. some dropped off, and mark again has mentioned some of these contingencies that did not appear this year. tenure, zimbabwe, and actually interesting saudi arabia. there was concern last year of the potential for political instability in saudi arabia. didn't show up this year. but we did get some new sources, concerns merger, increased sectarian violence between buddhist and muslim in me and mark, protected internal violence -- myanmar. inadequate in many respected interestingly, tensions between india and china appeared this

year, the possibility of rising tensions over there very territorial disputes may begin. and, of course, sedan as well. now, interestingly to contingencies showed up to internal instability in sudan and north south tensions. and it was not anticipated that there would be violence or internal instability within south sudan. as you see were already on top of it. we updated the conflict briefed to reflect the rising violence within south sudan. so that's about it for the pps. i owed you -- i urge you to not only read the survey results that use our global conflict trucker. i think you'll find it very useful, and that's it. >> thank you very much, paul.

the global conflict trucker can be found at cfr's website, cfr.org. i'd like to bring the rest of you into the conversation if we may. i would ask if people have questions to wait until your recognize can wait until we get a microphone. and if you could identify yourself, we would greatly appreciate it. go back to dr. walker. >> joshua walker. i was interested, the one major discrepancy that he heard between you and when he said turkey was off your list, a but started shaking, looking at his topless. and for all of the holiday surprises we had, it almost seems pressing. i want to pressure on the tricky question there. >> so, yeah, i'm very, very, very concerned about turkey. and i'm concerned that, me, turkey is one of a bunch of countries emerging market country that has elections this

year, but i think that it's also very vulnerable to the cross-border stop from syria, but my biggest concern in some ways is, i think we're heading back into the pkk kurdish question leading to a return of conflict and erdogan is just getting -- the more pressure there is the increasing, increasingly combative and conspiratorial and paranoid he gets. and it's really self-fulfilling, and i think that as turkey moved to this new constitutional arrangement with having more power in the presidency, you are potentially setting up a huge fight within the akp.

so i'm really quite concerned about turkey. i think we are heading into very, very nasty territory there. >> does erdogan run? >> yes. and i think he probably becomes president, but then this really uncertainty, the powers of the presidency, people try to prevent his main opponent in the akp from becoming prime minister. this gets very ugly. >> the reason that we, again, choosing which countries in the list of 10 and initially is hard. but on turkey it was again that 2014, do we think there would be massive loss of life in turkey as a result of a political conflict? the answer is no. i think -- long-term stability issues, absolutely. but again, turkey still, when

you look at the institutions in turkey, they are stronger. and the politics have a tendency, particularly the election politics now, i think we'll have a contingency on restraining erdogan and pushing both he and the pkk to maintain the cease-fire, at least in the short term. now, that gives them then the opportunity in in the midterm o deal with these issues and and much more -- let's say compromised way, that avoid the long-term crisis that david pointed is potential. so i hope that's right. my only issue here is that as things begin to get shaky in turkey, this year, erdogan veers very sharply towards his nationalist-based, and go into that basis exactly, he had to move away from a commitment he had talked about, vis-à-vis, the kurds. i'm very worried about this

purchase question going absolutely in the wrong direction, david. it's a good debate. we will see who was right. >> just adding quickly. we didn't identify turkey in particular as a great source of concern, but we didn't identify rising secessionists pressure amongst the kurds. we are a little us i think sanguine than igc on the deal between turkey and the pkk and vc concerned about unraveling, that agreement was largely reached before the creation of a kurdish enclave within syria. and is also obviously the effect of the iraq civil war on the possibility of kurdistan declaring some kind of semi-autonomous stay there, too. so it often think we do see a real uptick in instability

around the kurdish issue in 2014. >> fair enough. >> thank you. thank you very much for doing this. in my first comment is that it's quite different from last year. china as paul mentioned was big on the horizon. that china is nice, reforming cabinetry. this is deep contrast to my question is primarily to david. what i would say is you did not mention the fear of new imaging market crisis. of course, turkey is one of the countries we're worried about, indonesia, india, south africa. so i wanted to ask how concerned -- summit.

>> sure. i mean, hard about has to do with the focus of this session on civil conflict and implications for u.s. foreign policy. actually if you look at our document, what we call diverging markets is our number two risk. and it basically highlights the fact that the years between 2002-2012, 2013 were very good years for the emerging markets. they basically acted as an asset class. this was very favorable for political incumbents. lots of countries i think god unrealistic, bought into this whole narrative of emerging markets as the inevitable way of the future. in 2014 has elections and a half

a of the most important countries. and the outcomes are likely to be much more divergent here. so we are most pessimistic about turkey, but we are also i think a lot less optimistic than a lot of people are about india. there's been a lot of -- there's been a lot of enthusiasm over the possibility of ahead of government where he has followed a very market from the common investor from the policy. in india a bit like the united states, governing at the center in delhi is completely different from governing at the state level. and just like american presidents who were governors, their behavior as governors didn't, don't get their signals to what they're going to do in the white house. i think the same thing is likely to hold in india. and i'm particularly struck by

the fact that you had the last five years, you had a congress government, pretty strong with literally the world's leading economic technocrats in the driver's seat, and they failed to get real momentum behind reform. i think there's still a very, very big political challenge for india to move to the next level. i'm relatively more optimistic about some of the countries, people are concerned about. i think in south africa, we are beginning to see the fragmentation of the labor unions that could be a positive factor in terms of restoring a balance between populism and constructive economic policies. i think also that brazil, heading towards reelection would give her a chance to restart, reformulate or economic team

probably do a little bit more, particularly on the energy front where the brazilians are in real danger of falling behind the ways. colombia, i'm very bullish. i'm very bullish on mexico. but what our theme here is the emerging markets are much what difficult environment, and i think the whole narrative, even the international institution bought into of the emerging markets as the future is a much more complicated story. >> just quickly on china. i mentioned that there had been i think some general skepticism the tensions between china and japan it escalate into a hot war. quite a few respondents in the survey did mention the possibility of political instability inside china as a

concerned. and for those of you who did take the survey, you are actually passed to see if there are other issues not on the list, things you're being asked to rank of concern to you, please fill in the blood. and sure enough, quite a few actually did mention rising instability inside china. i don't think it was purely about ethnic tensions related to the weaker issue, but also general dissatisfaction -- uighur issue. corruption and the comments party and other concerns about governments in china. >> will it be significant that this year is the 25th anniversary of tiananmen square? >> i think there are people here who are probably better able to comment on the. i'm not sure it's going to get so much, you know, it's going to get more attention i think outside of china than within china. i don't see it as being sort of a focal point for public

dissent. i think, i think that's very unlikely. >> mark? >> two things. one is i think we've been writing about the potential, not so much for intentional conflict as result of china's effort to project power, but in terms of the south china sea, in terms of the creation of the pressure on japan, the potential for accidents has increased. and while there's likely both sides will backweight, nevertheless it's a matter of concern. >> mark, we've seen talk about improving, virtually nonexistent crisis communications procedures in northeast asia. how's that talk translate into any significant advances to deal with this issue of -- >> not yet. in fact, one of the things we've been arguing for is that there needs to be a series of -- not

single, not one, but a series of efforts both tactical and at the strategic level for communication to avoid these kinds of crises. >> i think the everywhere crisis coordination has improved in northeast asia is around north korea. and in particular, the dramatic improvement in 2013 in relations between china and south korea, i think really has taken a lot of broader risk out of the north korea crisis. the north korea crisis would clearly be a big challenge for south korea, but i think the fear always was that the korean peninsula could really be a focal point for a broader international crisis. and i think that's really gone way, way down.

>> jack wilson. >> hi, jack goldstone, george mason university and brookings. want to pick on something that david said. 2013 had a lot of crises, but nonetheless we saw quite a lot of resilience. despite the fact that debt ratios in europe went up for a lot of angle states, the euro crisis faded because of coordination and ecd. syria, the war got worse, but oil prices didn't spike because of the global process on fracking and the ability of the u.s. and russia to surprisingly work together. so my question is, given what you said about crises and in particular spots coming forward, what do you see about the resilience and the institutions that if an international order to function well in response to them the next year? is nader getting stronger or weaker? is the u.s. pivoted asia really

going to add security to that region? is viewin the u.n. going to be o intervene effectively in africa as problems pop up or some other agency going to step in? in other words, what do you see as the most effective global institution going forward? and are any of these threats potential risks to weaken or undermined the kind of responsibility, the response ability of these institutions be? that's a great question. i do believe, i do believe that we still have a very, very big institutional challenge. and as everybody knows, we have talked about g-0 world. and again, it's not to say that there is no multilateralism and there are no institutions, that i think that this crisis that you begin to see in u.s. alliances very much an

expression of g-0 world. i do believe, as i said, i think the region most, by far most vulnerable to this is the middle east, where i think what you're saying is an increasing role of regional action, of regional actors. and, frankly, a huge competition between the shia powers, iran and hezbollah, and the sunni powers, saudi arabia, the gulf states, turkey, again, who are very fragmented among themselves, very, very fragmented among themselves. but i think that as i look at the ability of the world to engage your -- engage your from an institutional perspective, i think that on the crisis,

prevention crisis response site, i'm quite pessimistic. i much less pessimistic on the international financial elements. but crisis response here, i think much more, much more challenging. and again, even in asia i think the sources of my optimism about security issues in asia is an institutionally driven. it's really much more structural and interest driven. so i'm a pessimist. i know some people on the panel may have some different views on this. >> mark? >> unfortunately, on that regard i don't. the concern, for example, when you look at the u.n. peacekeeping response, and a good example now is -- they are polling, they had to pull troops out of other peacekeeping

missions for central african republic, now they have to pull troops from other peacekeeping missions to do with a problem in south sudan, moving from 7000 up to 12,000 peacekeepers. simply, we don't have a good mechanism and we also don't have a good mechanism for ensuring that those troops are the right troops, trained, capable, not from the neighboring states of their own interest as we see in central african republic, chad. so that's a question there. the other is, and this is my hobby horse, the international system has failed utterly in 15 years to recognize the need to have effective law enforcement and justice sector support, and for fragile states both for support public and post-conflict reconstruction. recently don't have it. and, finally, i would say that the regional organization, they still haven't quite developed capabilities to fill the gap. and we either need to recognize that, help them do it, or

understand that you're going to have to have you in in a far more -- to have the u.n. and a far more capable, extended fork or skinny capability, it has to be done. and, finally, come of the one good piece of news is, is twofold. i think that the atrocity prevention board that the obama administration has started, finally in the case of central african republic, late, actually resulted in a far more expensive response over the course of the last month and have been would otherwise have been the case. and the u.n. has now developed something called rights forward, where they are actually going to look at this issue of how do you prevent atrocities come and hopefully get serious about it in terms of staffing, resources. >> just quickly, i agree with david. there is i think an institutional deficit in key

areas on really important issues, and i agree with mark, is also a capacity deficit in many areas, the resources of the u.n. are limited to deal with many of these conflicts. i think if there's some positive news in 2013, is that it's shown the value of the ad hoc coalition willing to actually resolve some crises. we saw that with iran, the p5+1 grouping, in at least getting this interim deal. we saw this over some extent the chemical weapons issue in syria. ..

parrot the gap between what we need to get effective mu e are doing to get effective multilateral cooperation, ineffective is an inappropriate adjective. do you have a question? >> very short. >> thank you very much, jim shearer, many thanks for the mapping of the terrain for our panel. david, a quick follow-up, on the theme of diverging economies are concrete cases to involvement in emerging economies and the global value chain as a

mitigating factor overall? i ask the question because the economist, this picks up on the theme of the anniversaries, 100 years from the anniversary of the first world war and the economist published a piece saying we ought to be a little more angst written about legacy conflict. john mccain -- and there was too much emphasis on economic independence but there is the global value change. are there specific cases you could back of to and if the panel wants to comment on the economist's concern? >> i think the whole phenomenon of supply chain integration in asia, literally tens of millions of people being lifted out of poverty, hundreds of millions of people being lifted out of

poverty in china, in indonesia, in india, yes is the answer to that. i remember doing a piece with my colleague linda lim from the university of michigan on wages in southeast asia and so-called race to the bottom hypophysis. empirically we are in exactly 180 degrees different world. it is not race to the bottom in wages at all in china, very similar, phenomenon. i think it is a fair question, i don't want to overstate the point. i don't believe that economic integration is a panacea and it doesn't always work.

the term i use was a mitigated ranted clearly is. in particular as i look at the middle east, part of the tragedy of what we used to call the arabs spring was you never really got full transitions that were able to put in place economic policies and programs to address these issues and it was that factors that was the major element behind the deterioration and i know this is something that is very hard to influence from the outside. plenty of people were working on these issues, egypt, tunisia and it was a bear if conditions and political conditions in particular in the country's

weren't enabling, didn't matter what the external community wanted to do or was willing to put money against. >> if you look at those countries, the bottom of human development index and match them with countries we talked about in terms of likelihood of additional conflict or three years, you find a pretty good overlap, particularly when you look at countries like the issue of income inequality has risen, there is again -- one of the most unequal countries in the word--the world of intimate disparity and the failure to do what occurred in southeast asia, the failure to expand opportunity with respect to education, these are underlying strategic conditions that have an impact, not totally but have a significant impact on set